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The Europe Roundup: The Art of Surveillance

Dutch news website Nu.nl reports that an inquiry on Internet freedom will be conducted by the European Parliament in the coming months. This research work will result in a resolution that will likely shape the foreign policy of the EU in the field of Internet freedom and human rights.

The inquiry will be led by Dutch MEP Marietje Schaake, a committed politician on these issues that has voiced the issue of EU credibility, in the past few months. It has in fact been acknowledged that European companies develop many of the surveillance tools used by Middle-East regimes to monitor online communications of citizens (and eventually track dissidents and activists).

The Dutch MEP has been frequently pointing out the central role that Europe plays and the subsequent need for a comprehensive European approach both in a global market and in a community of shared values.

The surveillance software is being tested by the federal criminal agency BKA. The news has been confirmed by the German government, replying to an inquiry addressed by Green Party MP Konstantin von Notz.

The news may cause many concerns, especially in a country like Germany, whose government and politicians in general have always been on the forefront when it comes to protecting citizens' privacy: MP Von Notz raised in fact more questions on his blog.
As reported by Deutsche Welle:

In his blog, von Notz questions whether the BKA has been given access to the source code of the FinSpy software, which can be used to tap Internet telephony calls. He received no confirmation.

"It would be unusual if BKA didn't have access to the source code," Dirk Kollberg, a specialist with the anti-virus software firm Sophos, told Deutsche Welle. "There may be some reasons. May the government doesn't have the people trained to analyze such code."

Von Notz also questioned whether the government was aware of the FinSpy surveillance technology being used by authorities of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

On Deutsche Welle John Blau also writes that "the government confirmed that the BKA acquired in early 2011 a license to test FinSpy for a limited period. The deal was signed previous to the decision that the government would establish its own software surveillance development program."

Back in October the Chaos Computer Club, the largest group of activist hackers in Europe, released a report of their analysis on a backdoor Trojan allegedly used by the German police of the state of Bavaria during investigations on a suspect.

Surveillance According to Artists and Collectives

Owni.eu published a retrospective of significant artists' works on video surveillance in public places.
From art to hacking and back: examples include the works of street artist Banksy but also that of hacker collective barrio feliz that diverted the transmission signal of the video images of 48 cameras installed by the municipality of Madrid in the popular Lavapies neighbourhood to a different channel so that the surveillance system became useless.

Since the mid-90s several informal collectives have been addressing the issue of video surveillance in public places, particularly in the United States. The Surveillance Camera Players draw the attention of their fellow citizens to the subject by performing plays, such as Ubu Roi or passages from Orwell’s 1984, with placards in view of New York City street cameras. “These groups also contain academics, members of the IAA (Institute of Applied Autonomy) which in the past distributed “Routes of least surveillance” – maps showing the areas of New York which were not under surveillance,” explains Samira Ouardi, author of the book Artivisme.

News Briefs

Hillary Clinton's deleted emails might not be as gone as she thinks; people making decisions about encryption know nothing about encryption; Meerkat is dead (already); finding out that Facebook filters the newsfeed is, to some like waking up in the Matrix; and much, much more. GO

Get to know Clinton's digital team even better; Ted Cruz election announcement-related fundraising offers peak into the coming data-driven campaign arms race; New York City launches online community engagement pilot program called IdeaScale; and much, much more. GO